The Household of God
Volume 1
The early history of mankind
- Chapter 157 -
THE THUNDERSTORM
Abedam had only just concluded these most important words to Lamech when Enos, Kenan, Mahalaleel, Jared, and Methuselah approached driven by great fear and all around the hut hundreds upon hundreds of children and their children were lying there in great despair and crying to Jehovah for help and gracious merciful deliverance from the beginning terrible destruction and such unheard-of terrors of the night.
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"Of the five who entered the hut, the speaker Kenan took the word and began to speak before Adam, as follows:
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"O father Adam, listen, if the vanished Emmanuel and through the might of His love your fatherly blessing do not immediately come actively to our aid all of us are hopelessly lost without grace and mercy.
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"Behold and hear how things look outside. The entire morning region is a sea of fire. Not only that countless flaming bolt of thunder are crashing from an impenetrably dense, fiery and glowing bank of clouds, but from the earth also everywhere lightning and flames are breaking forth.
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"Your magnificent grotto has already been completely destroyed by thousands upon thousands of mighty flashes of lightning so that no trace of it is left.
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"As I tell you, never before has Jehovah visited His children more frightfully and terribly than now. However, what I have so far told and described to you is the least important. But hear what else is happening.
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"The sea is rising from its depths under great rushing, roaring, raging and crashing. All the monsters are fleeing to us: tigers, lions, hyenas, wolves, bears, and serpents in their hundreds are forcing their way into our deserted huts, not counting all kinds of other vermin and creatures.
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"I must say, no human tongue could describe into what misery just a few minutes have thrown us! We five are the only ones not yet overcome by despair. Except for us, all are as if half dead lying on their faces awaiting the certain end of all things. Some lament, some scream, some tremble all over and some cry aloud; others are dumb and benumbed from being seized with fear and panic.
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"O father, it is a terrible sight. And look, the scenes of horror keep increasing from all sides. Truly, it cannot have looked any different when you still in Paradise watched the burning debris of worlds fly around and the earth destroyed under your feet in the wrath of God.
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Therefore, O father, do not delay, but come to our help if help is still possible!
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"Hear, just hear the constant crashing! Hear the thunder, which is shaking everything violently. Perceive the constant trembling of the earth and listen to the already close raging of the sea. Listen to the gruesome howling of thousands of beasts, which, terribly resounding mingles with the raging, rushing, and roaring of the flaming hurricanes!
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"If you believe that help is still possible, do not hesitate but help us quickly with your blessing.
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"There, there, O father, O all of you, look towards the door: Oh, the unheard-of magnitude of the disaster! - Look all to the door! - Here, too, strange, terrible guests are intruding. Guests from which we fled out of our huts.
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"Adam, father, Enoch, Lamech and you two Abedams, you beloved of Emmanuel, do help us and yourselves!
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"Look, a huge serpent is already hissing and leering through the door!"
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And Adam, horrified, and Seth, half dead for fear, and thus also Eve and Seth's wife said all together: "That it is really terrible we all now hear and see only too clearly."
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Then Adam went on: "Children, here my blessing is quite insufficient; if God does not help us we are all lost.
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"My God and my Lord! Why did I have to experience this? And even today on the eve of the Sabbath?
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"O Lord and Father and Creator of all things, is maybe the offering tomorrow already in advance offensive to You that You want to thwart it through these horrors? Oh, then relieve us of these horrors and make Your holy will known to us in our hearts; and all of us will lovingly do whatever pleases You. But do take this terrible temptation from us and let us all once more look up to You with grateful and happy hearts.
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"O Father, holy Father, do not destroy all of us in this night! Amen."
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When Lamech saw one monster after the other enter the hut and heard the deafening thunderous noise of the countless flashes of lightning and earth-shaking thunder, the raging of the sea and the winds and that also the beasts that had fled into Adam's hut began to howl and roar mightily, he too began to feel extremely uncomfortable and began to hold on to Abedam more and more firmly; and so it was also with Enoch and the known Abedam.
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Then Abedam asked them: "As I see, you are overcome by fear, too?"
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And the known Abedam replied "Lord and Father, with such a spectacle fear would be forgivable even to an angel, for the sight of these howling and roaring strange guests here with us in such a terrible night may surely confound every ever so fearless spirit.
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"I would prefer to see works of Your love rather than such of Your might. And because I now have to behold works of Your might I am filled with fear. O do change them into works of Your love! Amen."